Prestige Races....

[kreynolds]

...from Dragon Magazine. Have you guys seen this? Damn sweet idea, and the concept is identical to something I had been working on (lazily) for some time, but their execution of the concept was quite slick.

Question though, do the XP prices seem a little high to any of you? I realize that you're not spending any gold so that's where they hit you, and I also realize that by charging lots of XP it limits you to how powerful you can make yourself at any given level, but here's the strange thing...

...You're also charged the gold piece value against your wealth (this is actually just a recommendation in the article, but I happen to agree with it, so lets roll with that). So, even if you have the XP to spend, you can't use it for a prestige race if you don't have enough room left in your character wealth allowed by level. So, you take a double hit. Charging the gold piece value against your wealth already limits you, just like a normal magic item.

I don't have a problem with charging the gold piece value against the character, but if I'm gonna do that, then my god...I gotta lighten up on the XP costs.

Anyway...thoughts?

 

[Crothian]

THe idea I first say in Oathbound. In fact one of the authors on Oathbound was involved with that Dragon article (Ashy on En World).

I like the idea, the XP is high I think because it's designed for higher level characters like 12+. Not that isn't stated anywhere, but that's the impression I got.

I don't like how the suggest limiting of wealth. THat is totally in the hands of the DMs and not all games are using those guidelines.

 

[kreynolds]

I like the idea, the XP is high I think because it's designed for higher level characters like 12+.

Not exactly. The high end presitige race modifications top out at almost 12,000, but there are others that are substantially less. Some of these are cheap enough to be picked up before you even hit 2nd level.

Not that isn't stated anywhere, but that's the impression I got.

Actually, it is. Its in the first paragraph under Creating Your Own Prestige Race Alterations.

I don't like how the suggest limiting of wealth.

I don't mind terribly, but I'll only charge one or the other, XP or gold. Well, not really, but if I charge gold, I'm not comfortable charging for so much XP.

THat is totally in the hands of the DMs and not all games are using those guidelines.

Whoa, whoa, calm down. What's the big deal about a Dragon Mag article following the guidelines in the core rules? If you don't use the guidelines in the core rules anyway, then that shouldn't make a difference, right? So, no biggie. If you ignore it in one source you can just ignore it in a second source.

 

[Archer]

I always thought 1 xp = 5 gold was a bad deal. Creating a magic item with a feat makes 1 xp = 12.5 gold and with artisan its 1 xp = 20.8 gc

I don't particularly like the idea of looking like a freak and paying 1 xp for 5 gold for anything except the exact benefits I'd like is out of the question. Some of those abilities aren't impressive at all. Mid-level spell abilities are crazy expensive.

The 5 gold ratio is what they used for empowering your own weapon a couple issues back and you could even lose that weapon.